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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576458">You Should Have Lived</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribblerQueen1/pseuds/ScribblerQueen1'>ScribblerQueen1</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Not Really Character Death, Time Travel, Timeline Shenanigans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:53:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576458</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribblerQueen1/pseuds/ScribblerQueen1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A time remnant of Eobard Thawne gets a hold of a Time Relic called the Book of Alterations, allowing him to change the timeline to prevent his demise. Barry attempts to stop him but instead he ends up in a timeline where the Flash/Barry Allen was killed in the singularity. He knows he has to fix things but his family and friends are desperate to keep him in this timeline in fear of the worst.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barry Allen/Eddie Thawne, Barry Allen/Eddie Thawne/Iris West, Barry Allen/Iris West, Henry Allen/Joe West, Ronnie Raymond/Caitlin Snow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Should Have Lived</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eobard Thawne never seemed to stop causing problems in Barry’s life.</p>
<p>His day had been going fine until the Legends showed up requesting his help. One of Eobard’s time remnants was after a time artifact with a name that loosely translated to the Book of Alterations. There wasn’t much information on it but from what they could gather, much like the Spear of Destiny it seemed to be able to alter the timeline to one of the user’s desires. There weren’t a lot of specifics because it had been considered dangerous enough that the time masters had tried to destroy all traces of its existence.</p>
<p>It was obvious that they hadn’t succeeded because somehow Thawne had learned about it and found enough information to find a coded message of its whereabouts. Someone had wanted to be able to find it again if they decided they needed it, and it was causing them chaos now. </p>
<p>For Eobard it was a last ditch attempt at stopping himself from being erased from the timeline completely. The legends hoped that he might have kept some information in the time vault so that they could try and beat him to it. After a ton of searching, they’d come across the message. The problem was that by the time that they cracked the message Eobard had already done the same.</p>
<p>No matter what, it seemed that Barry was always too slow to catch up to him. The disappointing thought crossed his mind as he saw Eobard with the book in hand. He moved to chase after him, maybe if Barry could grab it before he figured out how to use it. </p>
<p>Everything blurred past them as they ran. Barry panicked as he saw the time stream start to form around them and they plunged into it, desperate, he pushed himself feeling the strain. He could feel the timeline already starting to change within the time stream. It fills him with dread of all the mistakes that he’s made, all the pain caused by changes to the timeline. He can’t let that happen. Not again.</p>
<p>He reaches out and Barry can feel the touch of the book but he can’t do more than that. If he could grip his fingers around the edges he could rip it from Eobard’s hands but he only has a short touch before everything disappears around them and at that moment Barry knows that he’s failed to stop everything from changing.</p>
<p>At first, everything around him feels devoid of anything. Just emptiness, not even his connection to the speedforce. Barry wonders what has happened to him. What changes has Eobard made for it to be like this? Maybe the information was wrong and the book did something else entirely? Then ever so slightly, he feels a pull. Like he’s being stretched and then compressed and all sorts of nauseating feelings.</p>
<p>And then Barry is spit back out into existence and he hits smack into the hard pavement, hearing tires squealing and the rush of wind as a car nearly avoids him. He’s pretty sure that he smacked into the ground at several thousand miles and was going to be thoroughly concussed regardless of the car missing him. It would probably be gone in a few hours thankfully. <br/>As Barry tries to open his eyes to see the changes around him, he hears car doors open and footsteps running toward him. That was probably whatever car nearly hit him when he appeared out of nowhere.</p>
<p>“Did you see that? It looked like a wormhole! Did someone come out of that?” The voice sounded slightly familiar, did he know them?</p>
<p>The footsteps get closer and a hand gently rolls him onto his back, keeping his head secure.</p>
<p>“Holy shit! It’s Allen!” The way the voice says his name makes it click. It’s a CCPD officer. That’s why the voices are familiar. Wait, was he in his Flash suit. No feeling of the polymer. Okay good, that’s right he didn’t have time to grab it. Things had happened all so suddenly.</p>
<p>A sharp pain runs through him and Barry is unconscious to the world, still unaware of what Eobard has done.  </p>
<p>The next moment, Barry is coming to with bright white lights and a stinging smell that tells him he’s in the hospital. Makes sense, the officers would’ve called an ambulance instead of Caitlin. That’s if Caitlin even exists in this world. Because Eobard changed it. He doesn’t even know what has changed.</p>
<p>“Mr.Allen, can you hear me? If you hear me squeeze my hand.” A nurse is hovering over him and he squeezes her hand as commanded.</p>
<p>“Good, can you say anything?” The nurse asks again.</p>
<p>“I think so.” Barry manages to focus enough to get out. A light is shined into his eyes and he’s finally able to blink and open them himself after.</p>
<p>“Follow my finger with your eyes.” Barry proceeds to do as instructed.</p>
<p>“Good, okay, now wiggle your toes.” He does that as well and the nurse gives her hum of approval.</p>
<p>“Okay, I’m going to ask you some questions. What’s your full name?”</p>
<p>“Bartholomew Henry Allen.” He responds.</p>
<p>“What’s your date of birth?” She asks another question.</p>
<p>“March fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine.” God he hopes that’s right, it would be weird if his birthday changed.</p>
<p>“What’s the last thing you remember?” The nurse continues.<br/>“I think I nearly got hit by a car, possibly a police car. I think I recognized the voices as officers I work with. I’m a CSI.” Barry tells her.</p>
<p>“Alright, let me go get the doctor, don’t move.” Barry lays there letting the white spots recede from his vision. It’s strange that she didn’t ask him the date or anything. Caitlin usually does when she checks him for a concussion. Maybe they don’t always ask for it at the hospital.</p>
<p>Barry ends up waiting quite a while before anyone returns to the room.</p>
<p>“Mr. Allen, I’m Dr.Fields. How are you feeling?” The new woman who enters asks.</p>
<p>“A little dizzy but relatively fine.” Barry responds noticing how apprehensive the doctor looks.</p>
<p>“That’s good. I’m sorry but I have some bad news to give you. It might be a little confusing to hear but with metahumans normal has gone out the window, you remember metahumans correct?” Dr.Fields stops to confirm.</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah? Why? What’s going on?” Barry is wondering what has changed in this timeline because that must be what she’s about to tell him.</p>
<p>“Do you remember a wormhole opening up over the city? It seems that you were sucked into it before it closed. Since then you were declared deceased, well until another one appeared and sort of spit you back out. At least that’s what the officers told me. You’ve been missing for over two years.”</p>
<p>None of what she’s saying makes sense. Wormhole? The only time that’s happened was when-</p>
<p>Then it hits him. The singularity. He went up to stop it, and it sounds like in this timeline he never came back down. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Eobard choose this timeline? He’d still be dead. Unless he had managed to stop him from completing his actual goal. At least somewhat. The timeline was definitely screwed up and he had to find his friends and fix it.</p>
<p>Oh god, if what she’s saying is true. Everyone thinks he’s dead. Would the legends be affected too? To be honest he’s not sure. It depends on how the book works. Not that they know that either.</p>
<p>“I know that this may come as a shock to you, I’ve called in Dr.Snow to help you through this. She should be here soon.” Honestly that’s a good call on the doctor’s part because he usually goes to Caitlin for help when everything is going wrong anyway.</p>
<p>The doctor takes a very awkward exit from the room and he can’t blame her. She doesn’t know how to handle a situation like this. But for him, it’s just another Tuesday honestly.</p>
<p>Soon after he hears the familiar frantic clicking of Caitlin’s heels down the hall and she appears in the doorway breathing hard.</p>
<p>“Barry, oh my god- I can’t believe it.” A hand shoots up to cover her mouth in shock.</p>
<p>“Uh, surprise. The timeline got screwed up and apparently I was dead.” Okay that was a dumb way to bring that up but this is the first time Barry’s ever ended up in a timeline where he’s dead. Or at least supposed to be.</p>
<p>Caitlin tilts her head in confusion and takes her hand off her mouth opening it to say something but nothing comes out.</p>
<p>“Yeah, it’s complicated. Isn’t everything? Uh could you get them to release me to you so that we can go to Star labs and figure this out?” Barry suggests to her.</p>
<p>“Um, yeah, I’ll go do that.” Caitlin turns, still looking back in shock at him. Of course she is, to her Barry just popped back up from the dead. He probably could have done that with a little more tack but it was too late. Sometimes he’s a little too fast.</p>
<p>Caitlin manages to check him out without much issue. The hospital hadn’t contacted Joe or Iris because Caitlin had convinced them ahead of time to let her handle it because she knew them personally, better safe than sorry if this went wrong. Since Barry doesn’t have his suit and doesn’t want to catch on fire or leave Caitlin’s car behind they drive.</p>
<p>The ride is silent and Barry understands that Caitlin is just taking time to process things. He glances at her from the corner of his eye and can tell there’s something subtly different about her. He’s not sure what it is exactly. Grief does have ways of changing people but he doesn’t think that’s it. She looks...softer if he had to pick a word for it.</p>
<p>They finally pull up to the lab and start walking in but then Caitlin stops him down the hall from the cortex.</p>
<p>“Hold on, let me check to see who’s here.” Caitlin goes ahead and a few minutes later comes back. “No one else is here, follow me to the med bay, I need to run some tests to make sure you’re okay. You can explain everything else.”</p>
<p>He follows her like she asked and then lets her start her usual routine before she begins to ask him questions. </p>
<p>“So you said this is a different timeline, that it got changed. What got changed?” Caitlin starts off slowly.</p>
<p>“I guess in the original timeline, unlike here, I went up to stop the singularity and I came back down. But I wasn't here. The other doctor says that it’s been two and a half years since then, I lived those two years in the original timeline. I think I was actually a little further ahead than that actually, by a few months.” Barry starts explaining.</p>
<p>“Okay, and how did you end up in this timeline?” She continues.</p>
<p>‘There was a time remnant of Eobard, he found a time artifact that he was using to try and stop himself from being erased from the timeline. I tried to stop him but I didn’t really succeed, I’m not sure how it worked really.”</p>
<p>A confused look comes across Caitlin’s face. “Erased from the timeline? How did he get erased in the first place? That never happened here.”</p>
<p>Barry whips his head up to look at her in shock. If Eobard was still here, then that meant so was Eddie. </p>
<p>“Wait is Eddie still alive?” He asks her.</p>
<p>“Are you saying Eddie died in your timeline?” Caitlin has a look of similar shock.</p>
<p>“During the singularity.” Barry confirms. He’s not going to mention how Eddie sacrificed himself, it feels wrong knowing that Eddie was alive here.</p>
<p>“Did you still have Zoom in your timeline? Or do you have no idea what I’m talking about?” Caitlin asks, increasingly curious.</p>
<p>“Yeah, we dealt with Zoom from earth-2. Wait how did you deal with Zoom, if I wasn’t here?” Barry asks.</p>
<p>“Firestorm. Ronnie and Dr.Stein got help from some other metas as well as some of the rogues and uh-” Caitlin cuts herself from saying more, unsure if she should mention it.</p>
<p>Barry doesn’t really notice because he’s caught on the fact that she mentioned Ronnie. “Wait, Ronnie?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, was Ronnie not a part of Firestorm for you?” Caitlin is trying to imagine who else could possibly be Firestorm.</p>
<p>“No, he was, it’s just-” Ronnie died in the singularity, at least for him.</p>
<p>“What is it?” She presses.</p>
<p>“In my timeline, Ronnie died helping stop the singularity.” Caitlin looks ill at the news.</p>
<p>“Wait, so Ronnie and Eddie. They both died. Did anyone else?” She leaves the question of who open ended.</p>
<p>“No one else we know died during the singularity.” Barry assured Caitlin and there’s a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>“Aside from you, no one else here did as well.” Caitlin informs him as an afterthought.</p>
<p>Barry stops to think about what else could have changed. Savitar. “You guys didn’t have to fight an evil time remnant of me recently did you?”</p>
<p>“What?” Okay that solves that.</p>
<p>“It was complicated.” Caitlin just nods and there’s a silence between them.</p>
<p>“I should call the others, I told the officers that found you to let me inform Joe first.” It’s a lot to take in and Barry sits in the silence of the med bay waiting for Caitlin to return.</p>
<p>Nothing visually has changed in the lab, so that’s a good sign. Obviously, Eobard wanted a world where Barry was dead and he was alive. He’s not sure how he still ended up here though. Maybe because he touched the book. It has to be.</p>
<p>Caitlin eventually wanders back in as he muses theories.</p>
<p>“I called everyone, I didn’t exactly tell them why. It’s something they have to see to believe. I mean you’ve been dead to them for over two years.” Caitlin explains her reasoning.</p>
<p>“I understand.”</p>
<p>It takes a while, but Barry hears a group of hurried footsteps down the hall.</p>
<p>“Caitlin, you said it was urgent.” Barry hears Joe’s voice echo across the room.</p>
<p>“Caitlin, where are you?” Cisco calls out after.</p>
<p>She takes a deep breath and then calls out. “In the med bay.”</p>
<p>There’s mummering around the group, and Barry sees them all before they see him. Cisco, Joe, then Eddie, Iris, and his dad. Caitlin had told him about Eddie but he hadn’t even thought about his dad. His dad was dead in his timeline after all.</p>
<p>“What’s this ab-” They stop dead, Cisco half crashing and catching himself on Eddie.</p>
<p>“What the hell?” Cisco shouts in surprise. Everyone else voices their own exclamations immediately after and it’s loud for a moment before someone, he’s pretty sure Cisco, shushes everyone.</p>
<p>“Barry? How are you alive? I don’t-” Iris is the first to speak up again, tearful.</p>
<p>“So the timeline got messed up, and apparently according to everyone so far. I’ve been dead for approximately two years but I’ve also lived those two years in the original timeline.” Barry decides to summarize it up quickly, so that he can get them all caught up. Eobard has to be up to something now that he won’t be erased.</p>
<p>“Dude, what the fuck? How?” Cisco says bluntly.</p>
<p>“Wait, time travel? This has to do with Eobard, doesn’t it?” Eddie is quick to put two and two together.</p>
<p>“Bingo.” Barry replies and then he remembers that his dad has been standing in front of him this entire time. Alive.</p>
<p>He catches his eyes, and Henry had been standing there frozen for the most part.</p>
<p>“Dad.” Barry takes the moment to soak in his presence and then Henry snaps out of it and rushes to hug his son. He hugs him back just as quickly. The others think that a group hug is a good idea and join in.</p>
<p>They are interrupted by a late arrival, Ronnie, who walks in very confused by the group hug and the obfuscated Barry. A second look tells him why Ronnie is late.</p>
<p>“Is that a baby? Wait, did you guys have a baby?” He looks back and forth between them.</p>
<p>Caitlin walks over, smiling brightly as she picks up her son from her husband's arms. He is very happy to see his mother, giggling at her. He looks to be a few months old.</p>
<p>“Barry, let me introduce you to one Barry Raymond-Snow.” She tells him the name and he’s shocked.</p>
<p>“You guys named him after me?” Caitlin nods to him.</p>
<p>“We wanted to honor you, you brought us back to each other and we thought that you’d died.” Ronnie tells him the reason for their decision. </p>
<p>“You didn’t give him my full name, did you? Because that would be awful.” Barry comments to them.</p>
<p>“No, just plain Barry. Caitlin thought you might haunt us if she did that to him.” Cisco pipes in from behind.</p>
<p>In his timeline, they never got this. Ronnie had died twice. Each time after they got brought back together, they were ripped apart cruelly. But here, they’d gotten proper happiness. And a baby like he’d seen once in the speedforce.</p>
<p>“Can I hold him?” Barry requests and Caitlin obliges him, carefully placing Baby Barry in his arms. “How old is he?”</p>
<p>“About eight months now.” He looks at the baby in slight amazement, knowing that he was named after himself.</p>
<p>After a short while he hands Baby Barry back and Ronnie gives him a hug as well to welcome back.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that everyone knows that for Barry that is just a different timeline. They can’t help but tell him what he’s “missed” while he’s been gone. Some of it is things that happened in his timeline but some of the things they tell him happened because he was gone. But it also makes him realize how much it’s erased for him. Especially when he looks down at Iris’s hand and instead of the ring that was once his mother’s, it was the one Eddie had proposed with.</p>
<p>In his time, that ring sat in a decorative memorial box that Iris kept on her bedside table in their apartment. But here, Barry isn’t engaged to Iris now. Eddie is because Barry was the one dead here. Notably, there is no wedding ring yet. Meaning that their wedding hasn’t happened yet, which is odd.</p>
<p>His dad was also released a lot sooner. They’d proven Harrison Wells to be an imposter and they’d found the confession tape much sooner. He’d apparently been released from prison a few weeks after the singularity happened.</p>
<p>And Cisco had offhandedly mentioned his brother, who was alive also. He hadn’t changed the timeline to ruin that here.</p>
<p>There were smaller things that were different but not as important to him. They stuck with him because there was a sense of dread, that he wouldn’t be able to fix the timeline back to the way it was before. Because whatever happened, fixed his mistakes. It seemed to be too good to be true. He knew from experience that there were consequences to be had for messing with the time stream.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to ruin this though. They all had the lives they should have, ones that he didn’t ruin. The only difference being that he had been the one to make the sacrifice here.</p>
<p>Barry knows that he may not have a choice.<br/>36 Months Ago - New Timeline - Singularity</p>
<p>The singularity above Central city closes. Team Flash is standing among the wreckage of Star labs searching the sky for their friends who went up to stop it.</p>
<p>A burst of flames catches their eyes as Firestorm reconnects leaving the end of the Singularity and flies back down to them through the debris. They land and separate, and Caitlin runs to Ronnie hugging him, thankful that he’s alive.</p>
<p>“Guys, where’s Barry?” Cisco asks as he fails to see yellow lightning streaks appear anywhere in the distance. </p>
<p>They all stop to look out. Iris’s eyes haven’t left the sky since he went up and neither has Joe’s. They stand there, painfully silent as they look. Sirens and cries in the distance are all that can be heard.</p>
<p>“He never came back out.” Eddie says.</p>
<p>“No!” Iris cries out. “Barry, please not Barry, no!” </p>
<p>Iris collapses to her knees, sobbing loudly. Eddie and Joe rush to her side, but there isn’t much that they can do to console her. Caitlin turns to Ronnie, crying into his shoulder as the weight of what happened hits them. He holds her tight, tilting his head downward.</p>
<p>Cisco is frozen in his spot. This can’t be happening. </p>
<p>Dr.Stein has no idea what to do either, they knew the risks but it’d all gone so wrong. He can feel Ronnie’s pain alongside his own.</p>
<p>Further away at the edge of Central city in Iron Heights, Henry Allen watches the news broadcast with his gut churning as they show the footage of the flash running into the Singularity, over and over. He knows that it’s his son. But yet they don’t show him leave it and he hopes that he’s wrong.</p>
<p>There’s an extensive search for casualties in the weeks after. The entirety of CCPD and the city’s emergency services were working full force already when Joe reported to Captain Singh about what happened to Barry. Despite tireless effort and extensive searching, they do not recover the body of Barry Allen or the flash.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry Joe.” Singh apologizes. He’d called him into his office to give him the news that they were calling off the search</p>
<p>“It’s not right.” Joe is openly crying in front of his captain, finally accepting that his son was gone.<br/>“He was so close, it’s cruel. We found Nora Allen’s real killer, sir. I believe we have all the evidence to prove it. Do you believe that we can get it in front of a judge as soon as possible? Henry deserves to be at the funeral. He has to be.”</p>
<p>David is shocked at the admittance and he’s even more shocked when he reviews the evidence himself. Henry Allen is released within two days, exonerated. </p>
<p>Henry struggles to make it through the funeral. His son is being buried next to his wife. Joe stands with him the entire time during the funeral, holding onto him as they both grieve for their son. Iris stands directly next to him, holding on to Eddie’s hand. She’s silent the entire time as an empty casket is lowered. Her face is blank and tired. She’d cried the entire morning and the entirety of the past few weeks but now she can’t produce anymore tears at the moment.</p>
<p>There’s a huge turnout for the funeral. Victims and family members of victims from cases he’d solved. Every law enforcement officer that he’d worked with giving him full honors and an escort. Team Arrow showed up as well. Oliver had paid all the expenses for the funeral, and had spent enormous resources to aid Central in relief efforts. He can’t help but feel like he should have stayed to help with Eobard but there wasn’t anything he could’ve done. There’s plenty of people that no one has any clue who they are, perfect strangers who only knew the tragic story.</p>
<p>None of that can change that Barry is gone for them. They’re left feeling empty with regrets at Barry’s sacrifice. The flash is gone. The speedster will not be returning to them. No one will be there to save them in the nick of time. Only very few people are aware that these two are the same person and that his heroism will go unrecognized to the public.</p>
<p>What they don’t know is that time will eventually return him to them under the unusual circumstances in which their timeline was created. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for Reading! Check my tumblr thescribblerqueen for updates.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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